Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1887-12-16
THE PANAMA CANAL
A RESIDENT LOCKER ON TALKS
OF TIE SITUATION.

Millions of Dollars Thrown Away and
Other Millions LavishIy squandered. |
Funeral Ceremonies-At the Hospital.
building a Dam-Colon.
To the weary and seasick traveller no more |
enchanting scene can be viewed from the
sea than the city of Colon, with its surround
incs Of tall palm trees waving IN the breeze
1t seems like glimpse OF fGirylnnd; but let
the tourist once land und he IS soon olsen
clrrlted. The air seems to be full of pesti-
lence. and if Cologne is said TO have had
seventy distinct stinks,n / am sure Colon
has at the least three times as many. In faet
it is a wonder that the Inhabitants have not
all Of them turned up noses. The front street
has n Gianked over sidewalk under which the
water stands and putrefios after rainfall.
The back streets OF the city are mud holes,
and d green scum is their principal decora-
ton. The majority of the houses are built
upon sticks, with bed OF steaming mud be-
meath to add to their sanitary advantages.
Generally the Panama Railroad company
run two funeral trains daily out to the GEM
ii "a
"deadheads.n
The funeral ceremonies are conducted on
most economical plan. A poor man dies In
the street A box is brought and he is tum--
bled into it and whrleA away to the place of
sculpture. On arrival the body is pitched
into hole. When there are four or five
bodies in this hole it is closed up. The boxes
are, however, always brought back for fur
thcr USE There is NO hospital or aid for the
sick and destitute. For the sick man there is
no aid, for the dead 10 religious services. 1t
is said that all are not dead who are thrown
INTO these pits. This is immaterial, of course,
as they soon die after the red mud is shoveled
in upon them. There are hospitals, of course,
in Colon, both American and French, the
latter under the auspices Of the canal com
pany, whose head is NJ de Lesseps. / have
personally given the French hospital trial
OF nearly year, and cannot recommend it
as n first class hotel Poor coffee and tough
beet are not, in my estimation, the most
notrrishing food for an invalid. These hos
pitfalls are under the control of my distin-
gushed friend NJ. de Lessons, but he never
boards at them when he chances to be in
Colon. The Sisters of Charity-noble women
French extraction have the management of
affairs. The PRINCIPAL medicines used are
compound cathartic pills and quinine, varied
occasionally by fly blister or an enema
This treatment is an emnently successful
one, as is evidenced by the collins going out
every day. In the hospitals, as in everything
else, the French have the preference, except
in graveyard privileges. They get chicken,
etc, when an American or Englishman is
given tough beef-the meat cut out between
the horns of bullocks whose ancestry dates
back beyond the reign of William the Con
lueror, who himself is old enough to be his
own grandfather.
LENGTH WHEN COMPLETED.
The Panama canal, or rather 1.-THE Inter
oceanique,N will be, when completed, about
tifty-five miles long So far about eighteen
miles have been dredged out on the Chagres.
and portion of the mountain at Cuiebra has
been blasted out. This is all the work of con
tractors, not OF the French. The American
Dredging company have done their work
molly, while the French dredges have lain
idle and rusted along the shores of che
Chagres The chief aim of French employee
seems to be to drink absinthe, cognac and
They are extremely clannish, and view Amer
leans as an inferior race of animals. The
canal company purpose building a dam
across between two mountains near GAMBIA.
This they calculate will give them lake of
some marvellous capacity, so if the Atlantic
and Pacific oceans ever dry up they can turn
OH faucet and fill the canal without soiling
their kid gloves This is all very fine in the
ory de Lessepsl, but the Chagres river rises
sometimes twenty-seven feet in twenty-f four
hours, and should it take q notion to do 50
after this mythical lake is completed it would
soon show that Gamboa was not worth a dam
profanity intended NJ de Lesseps is an i'm
aginative man; he is Il man of great ideas,
but he did not ''look before he leaped Judg-
ing by present prospects the canal may be
completed by the year 1876, when the second
centennial of this grand republic will be cele-
brated. Surprising, for example only, that
the canal could he completed by the French
company in ten years, an investor in Its
bonds would be a centenarian before he re
ceived q descent return on his Investment, pro
vided he was q years of age today. By
1cooking up favorable reports on a gas stove
the French management have bagged mil
lions of dollars, but the game is nearly
played out
NJ. de Lesseps has built town on Negro
graveyard at Colon, which he calls Cristova
COLON. He has taken Possession of the bronx
statue of Christopher Columbus, which wa.
pfeSentedb by Empress Eugenie, of France, tt
Colon itself Us being one of the first place.
visited III the new world by the great dis
coverer. Tins he has erected in front of hi
palace, facing seward, so as to welcome hin
when he sees fit to cross the waters Here
at ChristOval Colon, are collected his faith
ful satellites. Most Of them are like Ia,
lilies as they grow; they neither toll, nor tf'
they spin" yet they use up lots of brandy
vermouth and gin. As an old resident o.
the lsthmus of Panama and locker on q
all the d0ings Of the so called canal company
do not hesitate to stigmatize the thing it
self, 80 far, rs deceit and a snare. Doubt
less the company hope to complete the cana
at some future day by aid of the rain,
seasons, hut that will take some centuries
What is required is cool American brains
American energy, American capital and tn
thing will he success, q thing of today, no
as it promises now, to be regarded in year
to come as failure and fossil enterprise. :
Colon Cor. New Orleans Times Democrat
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